Monday, March 08, 2010

Words are POWER

John 5:47 But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?

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Did you know that words are a powerful force of emotion. They can hurt, heal, maim and destroy. They can express, release, sit and fester.

When someone says, “You look nice.” Didn’t that make you feel good? Even if you feel like crap? Those words emitted a force of emotion that brought you a positive flow of energy and might possibly carry that feeling all day long, dishing out words to others.

Now when someone says, “I hate you!” What do those feelings emit? A negative energy? And as such, you will carry the painful feeling throughout the day also. You might even lash out at someone else, just to release the anger you felt upon hearing those words.

Words are a force and each one will convey something whether verbally or written. The written word carries the same force and this is what we need to know and remember as writers. This is the very reason we need to choose our words wisely, so we can craft a sentence that is suitable for the force you want to convey to the reader.

I know as writers you don’t wish to inflict pain on your reader, but let me tell you, if the sentence is not structured properly, it can become very painful to read. What do I mean by sentence structure? Well it means to get out of every word that you write, the force that you wish to impart.

In this sentence:The dog walked down the street, looking every which way he could to relieve himself.

Let’s put power in this sentence!The big hairy gray dog strutted down the street, eyeing the fire hydrant up ahead.

Now we know he is big and a force to be reckoned with. He’s strutting, which gives this dog attitude. Now we also gather that this dog is a HE, as he’s eyeing the hydrant. He didn’t pass it, because we know, it is up ahead of him.

By restructuring a simple sentence we can glean so much powerful information and in our readers mind, they are forming a picture.

again:The raggedy gray dog paraded down the street uneasily heading to the hydrant.

Now we know he’s raggedy and he still has an air of confidence about him because he’s parading. The uneasily might mean he really has to go.

Train your brain to restructure your sentences ONLY in the revision stages. See if you can muster power out of them. It is the force you want to project to your readers and the force your readers want to carry with them, when reading!